China has brought surveillance of its citizens to new levels, using face recognition technology.
A woman jaywalked, thinking nothing of it. The police demanded her identity card, but she didn’t have it. They snapped her picture and promptly pulled up her identity and her personal history.
This incident was but a small indicator of China’s determination to monitor its people.
“Mao Yan’s Shenzhen is part of one of the great social experiments of mankind — the use of massive amounts of data, combined with facial recognition technology, shaming and artificial intelligence to control a population via marriage of the state and private companies. Already on the packed highways of Shanghai, honking has decreased. That’s because directional microphones coupled with high-definition cameras can identify and ticket — again, via WeChat — noisy drivers and display their names, photographs and identity card numbers on the city’s many LED boards. On some streets, if drivers stop their cars by the side of the road longer than seven minutes, high-definition cameras identify the driver and, again, issue him or her an instant ticket…
”But as Mao Yan’s story makes clear, this technology is bleeding into the rest of China, where 95 percent of the population is Han Chinese. And China’s authorities won’t be content with traffic stops. Their goal is behavioral modification on a massive scale. Chinese planners have announced their intention to tap the vast AI and surveillance infrastructure currently under construction to generate “social credit” scores for all of China’s 1.5 billion people. With a high score, traveling, securing a loan, buying a car and other benefits will be easy to come by. Run afoul of the authorities, and problems begin. Some Chinese businessmen who are benefiting from this massive investment in data have argued that the Chinese are less concerned about privacy than people in the United States. Robin Li, the founder of Baidu, China’s version of Google, which routinely shares its data with the Chinese Communist Party, argued over the weekend that Chinese people don’t care that much about privacy. “The Chinese people are more open or less sensitive about the privacy issue,” said Li, speaking at the China Development Forum in Beijing. “If they are able to trade privacy for convenience, safety and efficiency, in a lot of cases, they are willing to do that.” Ironically, Li’s remarks were released by the Chinese magazine Caixin on the same day that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology for releasing user data to a political consultancy. In her article, Mao Yan didn’t seem to agree with Li’s optimistic interpretation of the campaign. “Maybe,” she wrote, “it’s intimidation to make everyone afraid.” I think she’s right. Hours after Mao Yan posted her story on China’s Internet, censors took it down.”
We should never normalize the invasion of privacy.
Thats why I left Facebook. So did Elon Musk.
The protection of privacy—some basic human dignity—should concern us all.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What was once science fiction has become reality. I wonder what is next.
Assuming that Li is correct in that Chinese people do not care about privacy, one must raise the question as to whether the flippant alteration of the social contract is good for Chinese society. Hobbes famously defended absolute monarchy with the idea that we give up liberty to gain security. Locke refined this to the vision we base our American system on. This vision of classical liberalism has, in all its forms been the goal of nationalist movements across the globe in the intervening years. If Robin Li thinks that privacy rights are not a part of real freedom, then he is entitled to his opinion. But it is just that. One opinion from one powerful man is of no more consequence than one opinion from any of the world’s other billions of people. It is just his outsized control of money that makes him suddenly the spokesperson for the Chinese. It sounds like Bill Gates being the voice of American education…..
Thank you Roy Turrentine for your wisdom. Yes, your last three sentences are the absolute truth. I would love to repeat and remind readers that the integrity and the dignity of the TRUE CHARACTER in sentient being CANNOT be bought , manipulative and smeared by any power whether it is money, lust or fame. Back2basic
[start 3 last sentences]
One opinion from one powerful man is of no more consequence than one opinion from any of the world’s other billions of people.
It is just his outsized control of money that makes him suddenly the spokesperson for the Chinese.
It sounds like Bill Gates being the voice of American education…..
[end 3 last sentences]
“Robin Li, the founder of Baidu, China’s version of Google, which routinely shares its data with the Chinese Communist Party, argued over the weekend that Chinese people don’t care that much about privacy.”
……
I’ll disagree with that statement. Chinese people have learned that speaking out can cause personal harm. That is NOT the same as not caring. They have lived through tumultuous times and have learned to be very, very careful about whom they speak to. Their lives have depended upon it.
Hi carolmalaysia:
Actually, NOT ONLY “Their lives have depended upon it.”, BUT ALSO THEIR LOVED ONES, they, all, will pay a dear price sooner or later.
People who live in a fascist or communist country will be like a fish on the chopping board (if they are identified as rebel), or people who are like chicken, pigs and cows in the cage, as generally speaking, will be given a certain opportunity, then will gradually become a scapegoat whenever authority finds that situation suits them to eliminate scapegoat in the name of “PATRIOTISM”!!! Back2basic
Oh those crazy Chinese! That could never happen here!
(In case it’s necessary, yes, /s)
The Chinese love capitalism especially the part having to do with snapping photos (“snapitalism”)
It’s free market Stalinism, at its best…
And what has our nation’s response to gun violence been? More security in schools… including more surveillance cameras. I read recently that 92% of our schools now have surveillance cameras… and over 60% have a guard… What are we teaching our children?